


All I Ever Knew

by random_chick



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, Original Character(s), Winsister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 20:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/random_chick/pseuds/random_chick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meredith Winchester always thought she could do it alone, until she met Audrey Parrish. But things ended badly and Meredith's worries were only confirmed. Now, years later, Audrey comes back into her life with a supernatural problem and Meredith has to push everything aside to help her former lover. Can she do it? And will they reconnect?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the bigbang_mixup @ LJ.
> 
> Beautiful art by sailorhathor @ LJ [here](http://spectral-eye.livejournal.com/77511.html).

It was a typical ride out of town for the Winchester siblings -- Dean driving, Sam in the passenger’s seat, Meredith in back bouncing things off the back of Sam and Dean’s heads whenever they annoyed her too much. Which, given that they were her siblings and had that unique ability to push her buttons, was every twenty minutes or so. An improvement from the usual, actually.

Meredith occasionally wished that things were different -- though she didn’t know what _kind_ of different she wanted -- but all in all, she wouldn’t give up working with her brothers for anything. They were more than her brothers, they were her best friends and the two people she could turn to no matter what. Even if Dean was occasionally less than helpful. She could still turn to him.

A phone rang, barely audible over the blasting of the radio. “Turn it down, you idiot!” Meredith hissed at Dean, digging her phone out of her jeans pocket to check. Yup, it was hers. “I said, turn it down!”

“Relax, relax,” Dean grumbled as he semi-obediently turned the radio down.

Meredith didn’t even bother glancing at the number calling before she answered. “Hello?”

“Mer?”

An all too familiar voice, entirely too shaky for Meredith’s liking.

“Talk to me, Aud,” she said, her voice gone calm and soothing. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“We... saw something,” Audrey began. “A... not normal something.”

Meredith sighed. She’d hoped the supernatural would never touch Audrey’s life further than it already had. “Can you describe it?”

“Well, I didn’t actually see it, Mer,” Audrey said. “My cousin did.”

“Which one, Lacey or Rick?” Meredith tucked a lock of hair behind one ear, mind already racing.

“Rick,” Audrey replied. “He couldn’t tell me too much about it -- he was too freaked out. All he could say was that it looked like a young boy and it glowed.”

Meredith’s heart stopped for a second. “It glowed?”

“Is that bad?” Audrey asked, her voice full of worry.

“It’s... problematic,” Meredith said honestly, not wanting to tell Audrey the truth but not wanting to lie to the other woman, either. She’d done enough of that already and look how it’d turned out for her.

“What is it though?” Audrey asked. “Does it have a name? The kinds of things you look into generally have names of some sort, don’t they?” A hint of bitter in her tone, largely overshadowed by copious amounts of worry and flail.

“It does,” Meredith said slowly. “But it’s... not something I want to talk about over the phone.”

“My family will kill me if they know I had you come to town,” Audrey said. “They know you broke my heart, but they don’t know why.”

Meredith sighed. “That’s something we can worry about some other time, Aud. Right now, we need to talk face-to-face so I can explain to you what the hell’s going on.”

“Fine,” Audrey said shortly. “Where are you?”

Meredith had to stop and think for a second, the perils of being on the road so much. “We’re about a day’s drive from you, give or take a couple hours.”

“Who’s we?” Audrey asked suspiciously.

“Me and my brothers.” Meredith hesitated. “If anybody can help figure this out, Aud, it’s my family. This is what we do, after all.”

“Just get here as quick as you can.” And then the line went dead.

“Who’s Aud?” Dean asked curiously.

“Audrey Parrish,” Meredith said. “The girl I dated those few months you were in hell.”

“And why are we helping your ex-girlfriend?” Also from Dean, who really wasn’t intentionally being as much of a douchebag as he was seeming.

“Because I owe her.” Meredith bit the inside of her cheek. “I broke her heart and I lied to her and she deserved better than that.”

“You don’t talk about her much,” Dean observed. “And when you do, you never use her name. It’s always ‘the ex’ or ‘the girl I was with that one time’ or stuff like that. She must mean a lot to you.”

“She does,” Meredith said, nodding slightly. “She was the one, Dean. She was the one I could’ve given it all up for.”

“You could have _tried_ giving it all up for,” Dean corrected oh so helpfully. “We’re hunters, Mer. We’ll never get out entirely.”

They’d all tried over the years and they’d all failed; Meredith, as much as she wanted, couldn’t argue Dean’s correction.

“I _did_ try giving it all up for her, Dean, how do you think I met her?”

“I don’t know,” Dean shot back. “You talk about her so rarely that I was starting to think she was a figment of your imagination.”

Meredith leaned forward, smacking Dean hard across the back of the head.

“Hey!” he protested. “Driving here!”

“Don’t be a douche and I won’t hit you while you’re driving,” Meredith retorted.

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly; his two elder siblings were the most important people in his world, yes, but they were also the two people who drove him crazy like no other.

“Guys, can we focus?” he asked almost plaintively. “We have someone to help. It doesn’t matter that she’s Mer’s ex, she’s still someone who needs our help.”

Dean hesitated briefly before nodding in agreement -- a case was a case, after all. “Okay, so... what are we doing?”

It was as much apology as Meredith would get from her older brother; she’d take it right now. “We’re changing direction a little and heading to where Audrey lives. We’re going to be causing some family strife, possibly, because some of her family never liked me and she said her family will kill her if they know she had me come to town. Put those two things together and it’s not a recipe for anything good.”

“Oh, that’s going to be fun,” Dean muttered. “I just love family dysfunctionality.”

Ignoring him, Sam asked, “So what _do_ you know about the case so far?”

Meredith ran a hand through her hair. “Her cousin Rick saw a radiant boy.”

“Well, crap,” was Sam’s less than eloquent response.

Dean frowned. “What’s a radiant boy?” Not that he didn’t know a good deal about the supernatural world himself, of course, but that was one of the things he’d never come across before.

“Cliff’s Notes version?” Meredith said. “Glowing kid, always a boy, that signifies bad luck and danger to whoever sees it. Or the family of whoever sees it. It’s... not a good thing to see.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “If we can’t put this thing to rest, God only knows what’s going to happen to Audrey and her family.”

Dean sighed. “Where we going?” he asked. As much grief as he gave his sister, there was no way he could ever really turn her away when she needed something, and right now she needed his help. So he might grumble a little, and he might complain a lot, but he would be there to do whatever he could for her.

Meredith couldn’t help a relieved smile at that. “Maryland,” she said. “About half an hour from Baltimore, or thereabouts.”

“At least it’s not the middle of nowhere,” Dean said, because he couldn’t not comment somehow. “I swear, I’m _still_ shaking dirt out of my shoes from the last case you found us, Mer.”

“Hey, I didn’t hear you complaining when that last case got you laid,” Meredith retorted, a lightness in her heart that she hadn’t felt during Audrey’s phone call. Things weren’t looking great, but with her brothers on the case with her, how could she not be all right? How could they not manage to help Audrey and her family?

“Do I _ever_ complain when a case gets me laid?” was Dean’s response.

Sam just facepalmed. Sometimes his siblings drove him up the wall.


	2. Chapter 2

Audrey paced her living room restlessly. She still couldn’t believe she’d called Meredith. What on earth had gotten into her that she’d done that? The answer, of course, was worry and fear for her family, but she still couldn’t believe she’d called Meredith. They’d parted ways years earlier with a distinct lack of being amicable. There’d been screaming and throwing things, to the point that Audrey had nailed Meredith in the head with a heavy book, something she’d always felt bad about despite the anger she still held.

But Meredith knew what she was doing, Audrey knew. And if Meredith knew what she was doing, then so did her brothers. If the three of them knew what they were doing, then maybe her family would be alright.

And who knew? Maybe what her cousin had seen wasn’t really so bad after all. Somehow, Audrey doubted it, but a girl could always hope. And she’d always been a hopeful sort of person. Practical, but hopeful. She usually knew when to draw the line between realistic and foolish hopes, but right now? She felt she could do with a little foolish hope.

Except now, she had a sinking feeling that whatever Rick had seen was only the start of something, not the end of it. And if this was only the start, she didn’t want to know how it could possibly get worse. And that was just so beyond foolish hope, she didn’t know what to do.

Audrey sighed and headed for the kitchen. Maybe if she did some cleaning, she could get her mind off things. She’d always been a compulsive cleaner when things got bad, and this was bad. Or at least had the potential for it. She wasn’t going to argue with the tried and true, not if it might help her get through this with her sanity relatively intact.

She tried to be cheerful as she opened the dishwasher and started loading in the dishes, but she quickly found that while she could get her mind off the problem at hand, it did little to help her actual mood. But at the same time, she figured she’d take what she could get. A lack of dwelling was something she’d happily take.

She finished loading the dishwasher and looked around for the dish detergent. Only after she spent a couple minutes rummaging through cabinets did she remember she’d run out and hadn’t bought more yet. “Damn it,” she grumbled, shutting the dishwasher. “Just perfect.”

It was almost midnight, which Audrey figured meant Meredith and her brothers had a half a day drive or a little longer until they got there. Shorter, if Meredith was the one driving. Audrey’s ex-girlfriend could drive like a bat out of hell when the urge possessed her. Unfortunately, it possessed her entirely too often for anybody’s liking or comfort.

Audrey wasn’t sure how much longer she could pretend to be strong. It wasn’t that she was worried for Rick -- though of course she was -- but moreso that she didn’t _know_ what he’d seen, any more than he or Lacey knew. She absolutely _hated_ not knowing things, especially when said things involved her family. She and Rick and Lacey had always been close; Rick and Lacey had been brother and sister to her as much as they’d been cousins. So for Rick to possibly be in danger --

She shook her head sharply, forcing herself away from that train of thought right then and there. She was the logical one, the pragmatist, the one who could always make things make sense. It was part of why she’d called Meredith in on this, honestly -- she was damn well going to make that glowing boy make _sense_ for the man who’d been brother and cousin both. If that meant calling in the woman who’d broken her heart, then so be it.

That didn’t mean that she wasn’t going to have a difficult time with this; of course she would. But she could push that off long enough to find out what was going on. Once Meredith and her brothers had left town -- because she knew Meredith wouldn’t stay around -- _then_ Audrey could let herself fall apart.

And she had the suspicion that when she fell apart -- and it was when, not if -- it would be quite spectacular. On the rare times she fell apart, she did it amazingly.

But that time would not be now. No, not now. Not when there was so much at stake. She was the hopeful Parrish, yes, but she was the pragmatic one too, the one who kept her head together, the one who faced everything head-on.

Audrey just hoped someone would catch her when she fell.

 

Dean had let Meredith take over the driving somewhere around three in the morning, simply because he was too damn tired to continue on and Sam was conked out in the back seat. He knew his sister’s proclivity for driving fast and while he was protective of the Impala, he knew she wouldn’t be _too_ reckless with his baby.

All the same, he was less than thrilled with the overall speed. “Jesus, Mer, it’s not a race,” he yelped at one point.

“Shut it,” was Meredith’s terse response. “We can’t afford to waste any time, Dean. Just let me drive.”

“You’re not driving, you’re going at warp speed!” Dean said, eyeing his sister as though she’d lost her mind.

“I’ve never gotten into an accident yet,” Meredith retorted. “So like I said, shut it.”

Dean opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and shut his mouth. After a few moments, though, he did say, “On the bright side, at the rate you’re going, we’ll be there by nine or ten.” Which gave it two or three more hours.

“That’s kind of my plan,” Meredith said, her hands tightening on the wheel. “We can’t afford to waste any time with this.”

“You still really care for her, don’t you?” Dean asked surprisingly gently.

“Yeah, I do,” Meredith admitted quietly. “I probably always will. She was the one who made my life make sense again when you were in hell and we thought we’d never see you again.”

“I’m glad you had her,” Dean said. “It sounds like she was incredibly important to you.”

“She was,” Meredith said. “Like I said, she made life make sense again.” She paused for a moment. “I’m sorry I gave up, though. Sam was the one who tried to find a way to get you back, but I just... gave up.”

“You didn’t give up,” Dean said after a second to find the right words. “You did what you had to do for yourself. I can’t blame you for wanting to be happy.” He quirked a grin. “Besides, a couple years later Sam was the one who tried the normal life. I can’t blame either of you for wanting it. It’d never work out, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting it.”

“When did you get so wise?” Meredith asked, glancing over at Dean for a split second. “Have you always been this way?”

“Perk of being the eldest,” Dean said with a grin. “I come with all sorts of wisdom and fun tidbits and stories you’d really rather not hear.”

“Keep your sex life out of this, Dean,” Meredith said, laughing for the first time in a couple hours.

“Hey, you’re just as bad,” Dean retorted mock defensively.

“That’s because I’m allowed to be.”

“And how do you figure _that_?” Dean asked, arching an eyebrow and not entirely sure he wanted to know the answer.

“Because I’m your sister and sisters can get away with anything,” Meredith said, doing a remarkable job of sounding prim and proper -- or it would’ve been a remarkable job if not for the mischievous glint in her eyes.

“By that logic Sam should be able to get away with even more since he’s the baby of the family,” Dean said, suppressing laughter.

“Yes, but I’m your sister. Special logic applies to me,” Meredith said, again almost managing prim and proper.

“Your logic’s special, alright.”

Meredith took one hand off the wheel to smack Dean on the arm without even actually looking over at him.

“Ow!” Dean yelped. “Damn, woman, you hit hard.”

“I learned from the best.”

Meredith couldn’t help but joke around with Dean. It kept the worry she felt from becoming utterly overwhelming, which was something she didn’t need right then. She needed to be as clear-headed as possible so that she could actually be of help to Audrey and her cousin.

“What are you two bickering about now?” came Sam’s sleepy voice from the back seat.

“Rise and shine, morning glory,” Dean said cheerfully. “It’s almost time.”

“How far away are we?” Sam asked, talking to Dean but looking at Meredith.

“Couple hours,” was Meredith’s reply. “It’s nothing terribly bad. Go back to sleep, Sam.”

“I’ve done enough sleeping for a week, I think,” Sam said, stretching as best as he could in the backseat of the car. “Do I even want to know what the two of you have been talking about?”

“Probably not,” Meredith said cheerfully.

Sam suppressed a groan. “Oh, dear.”

“Yeah, that pretty much says it all,” Dean said. “Mer’s been driving like a bat out of hell, as per usual.”

“Good to know some things never change,” Sam said dryly.

“Bite me,” Meredith retorted. “We need to get there as quickly as we can, I tell you -- I’m not going to make Audrey deal with this on her own any longer than absolutely necessary.”

“Just do me a favor?” Sam’s voice was hopeful. “Don’t get in an accident?”

“Haven’t yet,” Meredith replied.

Sam resisted the urge to facepalm again, something that was becoming disturbingly common. “Yet” was never reassuring coming from his siblings.


	3. Chapter 3

The Winchesters pulled into town shortly after ten in the morning. Meredith fished her cell phone out of her jacket pocket. She dialed Audrey’s number quickly.

Audrey answered on the second ring. “Yeah?”

“It’s me,” Meredith said. “We just got into town.”

“Good,” Audrey said. “You come on over, I’m going to call Rick and Lacey, get them over here.”

“I thought it was just Rick who saw the boy,” Meredith said.

“When have Rick and Lacey ever done anything this important alone?” Audrey pointed out.

Meredith couldn’t really argue with that; she remembered how close the twins and Audrey were. “Okay, then,” she said. “We’re going to find a motel and check in. Once we’ve done that, I’ll give you another call and let you know we’re on our way over there.”

“Just be prepared for them to be pretty unhappy to see you,” Audrey cautioned despite herself.

“I don’t care if they’re happy to see me,” Meredith said. “I don’t even care if you’re happy to see me. What matters is that you’re willing to let me and my brothers handle this our way.”

“What else can I do?” Audrey said with a heavy sigh. “It’s not like I’ve got much of a choice.”

“Not everybody’s willing to accept the supernatural,” Meredith said. “You may not like it, but you’ve accepted it.”

“I’ve accepted that it exists,” Audrey said stiffly. “I’ll never accept that you’re a part of it, too.”

“Only because I hunt it,” Meredith said. “But that’s a conversation for another time.”

“A conversation we’ll never have.”

Meredith couldn’t explain how much that hurt, was surprised by how much it’d hurt. “I’ll give you another call in a bit.” She hung up before she could say something she might regret.

“She’s not happy, is she?” Dean guessed, remarkably perceptive.

“No, she’s not,” Meredith said. “I don’t blame her, though. It took a lot for her to call me; seeing me again isn’t going to be very pleasant for her.” The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Audrey, but it seemed as though that would be unavoidable.

“Just what exactly happened between you two?” Dean asked. “It’s something we should know, Mer. If it’s going to affect your ability to do this, we should know.”

“It’s _not_ going to affect my ability to do my job, you ass,” Meredith snapped. “I’m fully capable of compartmentalizing.”

Fully capable of denial, more like. It was something that all three of the Winchester siblings were really quite good at.

Dean just looked at Meredith skeptically. He didn’t believe her, but he wasn’t going to call her on it. She’d only get angrier and angrier, and that wasn’t what they needed. What they needed was for all three of them to have a clear head so they could deal with the radiant boy.

Meredith took a deep breath, her hands tightening on the wheel. This was going to be hard on her, harder than she wanted to admit. Seeing Audrey was going to bring back painful memories, but she’d brave it.

She didn’t really have a choice.

 

Twenty minutes later, they’d found a motel and checked in. It was a tiny little place and the three of them were crammed into one room, just by virtue of the fact that they saw no point in wasting time or money on two rooms when they didn’t know how long they’d be in town. If they looked into things and realized it’d be longer than they had first thought, then Meredith would simply get a second room. It’d be easy enough -- she’d just give the clerk an exasperated, conspiratorial smile and explain that her brothers were getting on her nerves.

Once they had their stuff in the room, Meredith excused herself to the washroom. She needed a couple minutes in private to pull herself together and brace herself for seeing Audrey. Hearing the other woman’s voice had been hard enough, though it hadn’t hit Meredith until the call letting her know they were in town; seeing her face to face was going to be even harder.

But she would do it. No matter how much it hurt, she would face Audrey. Helping her ex-girlfriend -- and her ex-girlfriend’s family -- was more important than anything else. Besides, the way Meredith looked at things, she deserved to hurt. She’d broken Audrey’s heart, after all. They’d been together just a few short months, time that’d ended in pain and betrayal. But despite the shortness of that time, she’d fallen for Audrey like she’d never fallen for anybody else.

She took a deep breath and raked her fingers through her hair. She’d have to fully explain to the guys -- well, moreso to Dean, Sam already knew most of the story -- and she wasn’t sure that was something she wanted to do at the moment. Or ever. But she’d do it. Just not until she had to. If she could push it off a while, she’d be okay. Or so she thought.

She let out a shaky breath before squaring her shoulders and walking out of the bathroom. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” she said. “We need to help Audrey and her cousins before things get too bad.”

Sam looked at his sister warily. He knew her, knew what she was like. Knew how good she was at hiding things. “Hopefully we’ll be able to solve the problem.”

“I hope so.” Meredith dug her phone from her pocket and called Audrey.

“Yeah?” Audrey answered on the second or third ring.

“We’re on our way over now,” Meredith said. “Rick and Lacey there yet?”

“Rick is, Lacey should be here in a few minutes,” Audrey replied. “And I had to tell Rick _why_ I wanted him over here. Which meant explaining that you were back in town.”

“That couldn’t have gone well.”

“It didn’t,” Audrey said simply. “He nearly walked out.”

Meredith sighed as they left the motel room and headed for the car. “I’ll try and soothe things over when I get there. Don’t know how good a job I’ll do of it, but I’ll try.”

“I don’t know that it’ll work,” Audrey said after an awkward silence.

“Neither do I,” Meredith admitted. “But I’ll still give it a shot. See you soon.” She tucked her phone back in her jeans pocket.

“What couldn’t have gone well?” Dean asked as they reached the Impala.

“Audrey had to tell Rick why she wanted him over there,” Meredith said, getting in on the driver’s side. “He was apparently less than happy about it.”

“Not a big fan of yours, huh?” Dean asked.

“Not since I broke his baby cousin’s heart, no,” Meredith said shortly. “Not that I blame him, I suppose. They’ve always been really close, him and Audrey -- and Lacey, too. His twin sister. But they’ve always been close and he’s always been really protective of both the girls.”

“Won’t be the first time you’ve had someone’s family member dislike you,” Dean said. “And it won’t be the last.”

“Yeah, but this is the only time it’s actually mattered to me,” Meredith said with a heavy sigh.

Dean wasn’t sure what to say at that.


	4. Chapter 4

Lacey was fuming as she headed for her cousin’s place. She didn’t like the idea of her cousin’s ex-girlfriend being in town at all, didn’t like the possibility that Audrey could get hurt again. She knew how much Audrey had cared for Meredith despite the short time they’d been together, and she knew how much it had had to hurt to call Meredith in.

But she wasn’t going to tell Audrey just how unhappy she was with this idea. If Meredith had some kind of idea what the hell was going on with that damn glowing boy that Rick had seen, then Lacey would shut up about it -- at least until Meredith had left town. When that happened, she’d probably read her cousin the riot act.

She shook her head and reached out to change the radio; the music that was playing was just grating on her nerves and she wasn’t sure why, given that it was one of her favorite stations. Probably just the fact that she was so on edge at the moment. That would do it to just about anybody, she decided as she changed the station to something at random. It might’ve been random, but it was still something better. She’d take it.

Lacey knew logically that she was focusing overmuch on the music because it was something she _could_ control and the glowing boy thing very much _wasn’t_ something she could control. Even so, though, she couldn’t help but think that maybe she was being a little on the ridiculous side.

Her attention firmly on the road now that she had the music issue taken care of, Lacey turned off the highway and onto a still trafficked -- but not as heavily -- road. It’d only be another ten minutes to Audrey’s place, and that was only if she got lost again like she did half the time. It wasn’t a terribly difficult place to get to, but without her GPS she tended to get the slightest bit lost sometimes -- and she’d left the GPS on the kitchen counter when she’d hurried out the door. Hell, at the moment she couldn’t even remember _why_ she’d brought it inside to begin with. She did things like that sometimes.

The next couple minutes were uneventful -- until Lacey reached one of the quiet streets that were closest to her cousin’s place. She made a turn and suddenly caught sight of someone standing in the middle of the road.

A boy.

A _glowing_ boy.

Swearing, Lacey swerved to avoid the boy, even though she had a sinking feeling it would do her no good.

And it didn’t.

She went through the boy anyway and spun into a 360.

All she could do was scream.

 

Dean was driving this time, so he was the one Meredith smacked on the arm when she saw the car on the side of the road. “Pull over, Dean, see if they need help.” Which, hello, car on the side of the road. Odds were, they did.

“Hey, driving here!” Dean protested, even as he started to pull over behind the other car. He parked and the three of them got out.

Meredith and Sam made their way over to the car; Sam rapped lightly at the window. The woman inside jumped, visibly startled. Sam gave her his best sheepish smile as she rolled the window down. “Sorry, we didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, doing his best to look innocent and unassuming -- an act he could still pull off far better than Dean, even after he’d been through so much.

“We just wanted to see if we could help,” Meredith said.

The woman turned her head slightly to look at Meredith; that was when Meredith got a good look at her face. “Lacey,” she breathed, remembering the woman from the few times they’d met and the pictures Audrey had around the house..

“Meredith.” Lacey’s voice was cold. She’d liked Meredith the handful of times she’d met her -- but that was before Meredith had broken Audrey’s heart. Now, she didn’t care what Meredith had to say, she’d never like her.

“What?” Sam just looked vaguely confused.

“This is Audrey’s cousin Lacey,” Meredith explained with a sigh. By that point, Dean had come up behind her and Sam. “Lacey, these are my brothers, Sam and Dean.”

Lacey eyed the brothers warily. “Yeah, hi,” she said, not sounding terribly interested at all in their names. “Relax, I’m fine, let’s just get to Audrey’s house already so we can figure this shit out and you guys can skip out on your way.”

“Sam, you go with Lacey,” Meredith instructed, even as Sam was already moving around to the passenger’s side. To Lacey, she said, “I’d feel better if Sam was with you, just in case anything happened.”

“It’s two minutes to Audrey’s house,” Lacey protested. There wasn’t much heat in it, though; even she could see the logic in it.

“Even so, just in case.” Meredith gave a short, sad laugh. “Besides, Audrey would kill me if she knew I hadn’t done what I could to keep you safe.”

“Yeah, she probably would,” Lacey agreed cheerfully. She didn’t mind that idea one bit.

Meredith gave the roof of the car a there-you-go pat and she and Dean headed back to the Impala.

“She’s cheerful,” Dean observed dryly.

“We Winchesters do tend to bring that out in people, don’t we?” Meredith retorted, just as dryly.

“It’s just one of our many, many skills,” Dean agreed.

Meredith was silent as she and Dean got back into the car. This was not the way she’d wanted things to start off. Not that she’d expected them to start pleasantly, but even so, still not the way she’d wanted things to go.

But she shouldn’t have been surprised, she supposed. She shouldn’t have been surprised at all.


	5. Chapter 5

It was a less than cheerful group of people who arrived at Audrey’s house.

She and Rick were already out on the small front porch, wearing twin expressions of worry; when the two cars pulled up at the same time, Audrey was surprised.

She ran towards Lacey’s car, ignoring Meredith and Dean and even Sam. “Lace? What’s wrong?” She’d seen the shaken expression on Lacey’s face even from that distance.

“I saw that fucking glowing boy,” Lacey said. “I spun out about two minutes away. The siblings Winchester came along right after that.”

That was when Audrey finally looked at everyone. “I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but that’s pretty much a flat out lie.”

Dean could respect the blunt honesty. He might have been good at lying, but he did enjoy honesty from people. “Yeah, nobody’s ever happy to meet us,” he said with a disarming grin.

Audrey didn’t fall for it. She did, however, turn and head back across the yard towards the house. “Everybody inside,” she said. “This is _not_ an outdoor conversation. I’d like my neighbors to not potentially think I’m insane, thank you very much.”

Dean laughed softly. He kind of liked this girl. She was a good fit for Meredith.

Only once everybody had settled into spots in the living room and Audrey had gotten everyone something to drink -- because damn it, she was a good hostess even in situations like this, not that she’d ever been in a situation like this before -- did they get down to business.

“So, what you’re seeing is called a radiant boy,” Sam began. “They’re the ghosts of young boys who’ve been murdered, usually -- though not always -- by their mothers. They’re ill luck omens -- ranging from injury to death.”

“Oh, that’s charming,” Rick muttered. “And a little crazy. Do you really believe what he’s saying, Aud?”

“How can we not?” Audrey countered. “It’s the only explanation we’ve got. Well, either that or we’re collectively going insane.” Which was always possible, but somehow she doubted that was the case.

“This shit isn’t real,” Rick protested.

“If it’s not real, then how do you explain it?” Audrey challenged.

“How can you defend her and what she believes in?” Rick retorted. “She believes in this shit and so do they, and I’m pretty sure the three of them are crazy for it.”

“Rick, we _both_ saw it,” Lacey said tiredly, taking a sip of her water. “It’s got to be _something_ real, even if it’s something we don’t understand.”

Rick just grumbled under his breath, took a heavy swig of his beer, and studiously avoided looking at any of the Winchester siblings. “I still don’t like it.”

“Nobody likes it,” Meredith said in as placating a voice as she could manage. “But it’s what’s real and it’s what we’ve got to deal with.”

“Yeah, but _how_ do we deal with it?” Audrey asked.

“Luckily, that’s where we come in,” Dean said, taking a swig of his beer.

“First step is figuring out who this boy might be,” Sam said. “Because if we can figure out who it is, we can possibly find the body. And we can salt and burn it.”

“So... tell us everything you can about radiant boys,” Audrey said after a moment. “If we know exactly what they are, maybe we can help you guys.”

Not that she necessarily _wanted_ to help the Winchester siblings, to open herself to their world, but if it would help make _her_ world normal again, then she’d suck it up and deal.

Her cousins, however, didn’t seem nearly as optimistic about it, judging by the looks on their faces.

Dean plowed right ahead and said, “We’ve pretty much told you all we know. There’s not a lot to know about them. But, like I said, if we find out _who_ this boy is, we can fix things.”

“Salting and burning the body is _fixing_ things?” Rick burst out, unable to believe what he was hearing.

“It means the ghost will go away,” Dean said. “So, yeah, it’s fixing things.”

Sam resisted the urge to facepalm again -- Dean and Meredith were bringing that instinct out a lot lately. “It’s the only solution we have,” he said. “It’s not happy and cheerful, no, but it _is_ an end to things.”

“The real problem’s going to be figuring out who the boy is,” Meredith said. “He could be almost _anybody_.”

“So we start with the easiest possibility first,” Sam said. “Mer, you can draw. If Rick and Lacey describe him, can you sketch the face?”

“Yeah,” Meredith said, rising from her seat. “My stuff’s out in the car, I’ll be right back.”

“What good will that do?” Lacey asked.

“It will give us something we can have at hand as we go through all the family photo albums,” Sam replied. “Because it’s possible that the boy is a relative of yours.”

“Do you have any relatives who died as children?” Dean asked.

“I... I don’t know,” Lacey said, frowning thoughtfully. “Maybe. We’d have to ask the older generation in the family, I think. They’d probably know better than we would. My grandmother knows _everything_ about the family histories.”

“It’s true,” Audrey said. “Grandma Marilyn is kind of the family record keeper, I guess you could say. If she doesn’t know who it is, she’ll know what relative we have to talk to.”

Meredith was back in the house a moment later, carrying a satchel. She sat back down on the chair she’d been in and pulled out a sketchpad and a set of pencils. “Okay, start talking,” she said, selecting one of the pencils.

Rick and Lacey looked at each other uncertainly, both internally flailing. After a moment, Lacey was the one who started.

Meredith focused on Lacey’s words, the pencil flying over the page and a face starting to take form. Between what Lacey told her and then what Rick added in, she was able to draw up a complete face.

“Okay, does this look like anybody in your family?” Meredith asked, turning the sketchpad and holding it out so the Parrish cousins could see.

Audrey frowned thoughtfully. “It _looks_ kind of like our grandfather did as a young boy. But obviously it’s not him, because he’s still very much alive and yeah, didn’t die as a kid, obviously.”

“But it does give us a clue,” Sam said. “The radiant boy is someone from that particular side of the family.”

Audrey thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know who it could be,” she said after a long moment of consideration. “But like Lacey said, our grandmother might -- it’s her husband with the resemblance, after all. And she knows everything about every part of the family -- or at least that side. She knows about the other side, but still less.”

“Then it looks like we have to ask her,” Meredith said. “Now, is she the older lady who liked me or is she the one who threatened to have a curse put on me?”

“Curse lady is her sister,” Lacey said, not bothering to stifle a smirk.

“Thank God for that.” And Meredith meant every bit of that sentence. “Because your grandmother was pretty awesome, judging by the two times I met her. So going to her, not the hardest thing we could have to do.”

“So now we just decide who goes and talks to her,” Audrey said with a heavy sigh. “And how much of the actual story we tell her.”

“All of it,” Dean surprised them by saying.

Sam and Meredith looked at him in startled shock.

“No, hear me out,” Dean said. “I know we’re usually all about spinning whatever story and playing whatever role we need to in order to get the information we need, but that’s not going to work here. And since we want to take care of this in as short a time as possible, it might just be time to try the truth for a change.”

Dean could be a bastard sometimes, and as good a liar as anybody, but he could tell how much this was hurting Meredith -- and he loved his slightly younger sister dearly. He’d do whatever it took to keep her from hurting any more than she’d already been hurt.

“Worth a shot,” Sam said. “So now it’s like Audrey said. We figure out who goes and talks to her grandmother. It should be at least one of us.”

“It should be me and Meredith,” Audrey said, her voice quiet and not quite dull. “She’s the one my grandmother knows. She’s the one my grandmother will be inclined to help.”

“Us it is, then,” Meredith said. “Hopefully it won’t take terribly long -- I know spending time around me is the last thing you really want to be doing.”

“Long as you’re aware of that.” Audrey smiled faintly.

Meredith couldn’t help but smile back. Yes, it hadn’t been a compliment, but it’d been delivered with as much venom as she would’ve expected from Audrey. She’d take it.

“Okay, then, hate to break up the adorable lesbian bonding,” Dean said. “But you two should probably do this soon.”

Meredith rolled her eyes at Dean but nodded her general assent. “Can you call your grandmother now? Find out when we can get together and talk to her? If she’s not willing to come over, we’ll go over there.”

“Making assumptions for me?” Audrey teased, unable to help herself. It was so easy to be around Meredith still, despite the awkwardness of the situation as a whole. It was confusing, but she didn’t entirely want to question it. And at any rate, she’d question it later, when they’d taken care of the situation and Meredith was gone from her life again.

After all, thinking about it either way would bring her pain. Better to have that pain come when she didn’t have to hide it from her ex-lover and her ex-lover’s two brothers and her own cousins. Better to have it come when she could hide away in her house for a couple days and get mind-numbingly drunk to cope. She didn’t drink often, but she thought that for this? She might well make an exception.

“If I say yes, you’ll throw something at me. If I say no, you’ll throw something at me. I don’t win.” Meredith was trying not to read too much into Audrey’s gentle teasing. She knew she had no _right_ to read anything into it.

Dean, for his part, kind of hated that hopeful light he could see in his sister’s eyes. This wasn’t going to end well at all for her, he had a feeling, and all he could do was sit back and let it happen.

He wasn’t very good at just sitting back and letting things happen.

“We should go as soon as we can,” Meredith said to Audrey. “We wait too long, we run the risk of something happening. Lacey saw the radiant boy and nearly hit a tree. Something probably happened to Rick, too.”

“He _did_ fall down a flight of stairs,” Audrey said, willfully ignoring the dirty look Rick shot her.

“I didn’t fall down the entire flight of stairs,” Rick protested. “I tripped down the second half.”

“Yeah, close enough,” Meredith said. “Point is, it still involved something bad happening to you -- and that’s what the radiant boy’s a sign of. We need to get rid of him before something worse happens to any of you.”

Rick just stared at her for a moment or two. She had a point, as loathe as he was to admit it. If the radiant boy was a harbinger of all things bad, then seeing him any more often than they already had could be a bad thing, yeah.

“We don’t want that,” he finally agreed. “Just go and get it over with. The quicker we can get you out of our cousin’s life, the better.”

Meredith ignored the sting of pain and frustration that caused. “Don’t worry, we don’t want to be here any longer than necessary, either.”

“Let’s go now, then,” Audrey said, rising.

Meredith flipped her sketchpad back around and closed it, tucking it back into her satchel before standing. “Now it is.”

Audrey grabbed her jacket from where it’d been tossed and made sure her keys were still in the pocket. “I want the four of you to play nice,” she said to the others as she and Meredith headed for the door. “No killing each other.”

Dean and Sam stared at Lacey and Rick, only to be stared back at in return.

This was going to be _so_ pleasant.


	6. Chapter 6

The car ride was awkward, to say the least. Audrey drove, which left Meredith to sit and silently observe her ex-girlfriend.

“Like what you see?” Audrey asked, noticing Meredith out of the corner of her eye.

“You know I do,” Meredith replied. “I always have.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Audrey said, her voice sounding far calmer than she felt.

“Aud, I didn’t _want_ to lie to you.”

“But you did it anyway.”

“Yeah, I did. Because I didn’t think I had any other choice,” Meredith said. “I was tired of fighting the supernatural, of letting my life revolve around it, of not _having_ a life because of it. You were my second chance.”

“Doesn’t explain why you hid it from me,” Audrey said. “You could have told me anything. You knew that.”

Meredith sighed. “I didn’t want you to know about that side of my life because I didn’t want that side of my life to be able to come after you. If you knew about it, you’d have been fair game for the demons. Hell, the angels, too since they’re dicks enough to come after the woman I love.” None of the Winchesters had a terribly high opinion of most angels.

“Why?” Audrey asked. “Why would I have been fair game?”

“Because you’re important to a Winchester,” Meredith said simply. “And neither side cares about what’s important to a Winchester -- you’d have just been a tool to either get me to fall in line or to torture me, depending on which side we’re talking about.”

Audrey was silent for a moment. “You don’t sound too thrilled with either side.”

“One side’s pure evil, the other side’s a bunch of douches.” Meredith made a face. “I’ve got no reason to like either side. Because hey, like I said. One’s evil, the other’s a collective bag of douche.”

Audrey snorted at that. “I still don’t understand why you were so scared of telling me.”

“Because if you knew, you stood a better chance of being targeted and killed,” Meredith said. “Of course, you were a potential target no matter what, but that was an increase of chances that I wasn’t willing to risk.”

“So you made the decision for me.” Audrey’s voice was full of unhappiness and a bit of anger. “You didn’t give me the chance to decide whether or not I wanted to stand by you and face it all together.”

“It’s not a world you want to be in, Aud,” Meredith said wearily. “It’s full of danger and not knowing what’s going to happen next and sleep deprivation and so much more.”

“I loved you,” Audrey said. “I would’ve faced anything for you.”

Before Meredith could respond, they pulled into a driveway. She let out a sigh and raked her fingers through her hair. This was not a conversation to continue at the moment.

Audrey turned the car off and turned to Meredith. “Be gentle with her,” she said. “She’s protective of me. She may have liked you, but I can’t guarantee she’ll be entirely happy with you.”

“Fair enough,” Meredith said as she got out of the car. She grabbed the satchel and slung it over her shoulder. “Here we go, then.”

“Here we go,” Audrey echoed.

They approached the front door and just stood there for a moment. It was Meredith who finally lifted a hand to knock at the door.

A moment later, Audrey’s grandmother answered the door. “Audrey, sweetie, what brings you here?” she asked, smiling. “And... Meredith? What are _you_ doing here?” She knew all about the break-up; she’d been the one to console Audrey when she’d been sobbing her heart out.

“It’s complicated, Marilyn,” Meredith said. “It’s a story probably not told on the front porch.”

Warily, somehow knowing the girls weren’t up to anything good, Marilyn stepped back to let them in.

Audrey gave her grandmother an awkward smile. “There’s some pretty strange stuff going on right now, grandma, and you’re probably not going to believe it.”

“Try me,” Marilyn said, ushering the girls into the living room and shutting the door. “But what I really want is an explanation for why your ex-girlfriend’s back in town.”

“That’s part of the strange stuff,” Audrey said as she and Meredith sat. “I’ll get to that.”

“Okay, then,” Marilyn said, taking a seat. “Start talking.”

Audrey hesitated. “You know how Rick fell down the stairs the other day? Well, he didn’t fall down the stairs because he’s a klutz, he fell down them because he saw something.”

“What did he see?” Marilyn asked. “It startled him, right, if it made him fall down the stairs.”

“Not exactly,” Meredith said. “What he saw is called a radiant boy. It’s a harbinger of doom, basically. Okay, maybe doom’s overstating it a little, but it’s a sign of bad things to come.”

“But what the hell _is_ it?” Marilyn asked. “Is it a ghost or something?”

“It is,” Meredith said. “The ghost of a young boy murdered, most often by his mother.”

“So what does that have to do with Rick? Why would he see it?” Marilyn asked.

“Because it’s quite possibly a family member of yours,” Meredith said, pulling her sketchpad out and opening it to the page she’d been drawing on. She held it out. “Does it look like anyone you can think of?”

“It looks like my husband did at that age,” Marilyn said, studying the sketch intently. “So it’s someone from that part of the family. Which means... hm.” She frowned. “I think this is where we pull out the photo albums.”

“You’re not surprised by this?” Audrey asked, looking at her grandmother.

“We need to deal with it now,” Marilyn said, rising and going over to a bookcase in the corner and selecting a couple of albums. “I’ll be surprised and disbelieving later. There’s no time for it at the moment.”

Now Meredith remembered why she’d liked this woman the few times they’d met.

“How long has this radiant boy been appearing?” Marilyn asked, sitting back down and plunking the albums down next to her on the couch. She picked up the first one and began looking through it.

“A week and a half,” Audrey said. “Rick saw it a week and a half ago, and I think he’s seen it a few more times that he’s not admitting to. And Lacey saw it earlier today.”

Marilyn just shook her head. “Not good,” she said. “I don’t know all the details, but that can’t be good.” She held a hand out for the sketchpad.

“It’s not,” Meredith said, handing over the sketchpad. “Because basically, seeing one of these things means badness is a-comin’ at the best, and at worst it means that whoever sees it’s gonna die.” She saw no need to sugarcoat things for Marilyn. The older woman had always struck her as someone who didn’t appreciate getting fed a load of bullshit.

“Well, then, honey, we’ve just gotta figure out who this is so nobody dies,” Marilyn said. “You girls may not be together anymore, Meredith, but I do very much appreciate you being willin’ to help my grandkids.”

“It’s what my brothers and I do, ma’am,” Meredith said. “I’d be helping her even if she wasn’t my ex-girlfriend.”

“Yes, but I know it can’t be an easy thing for you to do.” Marilyn flipped a page. “Don’t think this means I’m entirely happy with you, though, little missy. You broke my Audrey’s heart, after all.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Meredith said. She wanted to defend herself, but had a feeling it wouldn’t help her case any, and so she just let the moment go.

It took Marilyn another fifteen minutes of going through photo albums before she let out a whoop. “Found him!” she said, sliding the picture out of the clear pocket it’d been in. “His name’s Thomas Parrish. Born 1937, died 1944.”

“Buried in a cemetery?” Meredith asked. Because if he was, well, then it looked like she and her brothers were going to be doing a little grave-robbing, technically speaking.

“A little private one,” Marilyn said. “Why?”

“Because we’re going to have to salt and burn the body,” Meredith said calmly. “Not the most appealing thing, but it’s what works.”

Marilyn cocked her head thoughtfully. “So... aren’t ghosts usually tied to where they died? Or where they’re buried? I know it’s one of the two,” she said, admitting easily that she wasn’t quite sure.

“Generally, yes, but the supernatural is rarely clearly defined and understood,” Meredith said. “There’s a general set of rules, yeah, but there’ve been exceptions.”

Marilyn looked at her for a long few moments. “Do it, then,” she said. “If Thomas’s ghost is a harbinger of danger and death, he needs to be gone. He may be family, but if he’s hurting the rest of the family, then the living ones come first.”

Meredith nodded. “We’ll do it,” she said. “And we’ll be as respectful as we possibly can be.” Considering that they were going to be digging up a several decades dead seven-year-old boy, she wasn’t exactly sure how respectful that would be. But it was something she’d felt compelled to say.

“You’d better.” Marilyn’s voice was quiet but fierce.

“We will, ma’am,” Meredith said.

“Good.” Marilyn gave a small smile. “Now go and get this done.”


	7. Chapter 7

Dean had given up on trying to make conversation with Rick and Lacey; rather, he’d given up on listening to Sam’s every few minutes attempting to it. His brother was the nicest of the three siblings by far; Dean knew that it wasn’t Sam actively trying to be nice to them, it was him trying to get along with Meredith’s ex-girlfriend by virtue of being nice to her cousins.

Not that Dean knew why they should try and be nice; it wasn’t like they were going to be sticking around in town after they did what they had to do. And he was pretty damn sure Meredith and Audrey weren’t going to be keeping in any kind of contact, so why play nice like Audrey had the potential of being a member of the family? Harsh, probably, but harsh was what had gotten Dean through life. And after everything he, Sam, and their sister had been through, harsh had been forced into them all.

So instead of sitting in the living room and engaging in a staring contest, Dean got up and headed into the kitchen. If he couldn’t have things rolling along smoothly, then at least he could raid Audrey’s kitchen for something to eat. Under the circumstances, he figured he deserved it.

The front door opened just as Dean was rummaging around in the refrigerator. He shut the door and poked his head out into the living room. “Hey, what’d you find out?”

“We’ve got a name and a location of burial,” Meredith said. “Which means that now all that’s left is to make a plan, get out to the small private cemetery he’s buried in, and take care of business.”

“We’re going,” Dean said, gesturing to himself and Sam. “You’re staying here.”

“No, Dean,” Meredith protested. “I’m going with you. I want to be there when it happens. And who knows? Something could happen where you need help. You might need that extra set of hands.”

“Mer?” This was Audrey’s contribution to the conversation. “Let them go. I don’t want to risk you getting hurt.”

“But you don’t even _like_ her anymore,” Rick protested.

“Not especially, no,” Audrey admitted. “But I’ll be damned if I run the risk of something happening to her before she and I get to have the conversation we really need to have.”

Meredith looked around the room for a moment. “Fine,” she said reluctantly before looking at her brothers. “I’ll give you the information you’ll need. And stay safe, guys. I know it’s just a glorified ghost, but you get your asses killed and I’ll find a way to bring you back just so I can smack the ever-loving shit out of you. Got it?”

Dean laughed softly. “Got it.”

Meredith dug a piece of paper out of her jacket pocket, followed by pulling the picture Marilyn had given them from her satchel, and handed both to Dean. “She didn’t have a plot number or anything like that, but she said it’s a teensy tiny little private cemetery, so I imagine it shouldn’t be too terribly hard to find.”

Dean stuffed the piece of paper into his pocket. “Okay, then. Sam, let’s go.”

Sam rose and headed for the doorway and then the car; Sam followed a moment after.

Meredith watched her brothers go and did the only thing she could do: she turned to Audrey and asked, “Anything else to drink?”

 

Dean was behind the wheel, as usual, which left Sam to sit in the passenger’s seat and look at the photograph. “Poor kid,” he said. “To be killed like that and end up a ghost.”

“Yeah, sucks,” Dean responded eloquently. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the time to make nice-nice with little Tommy. Salting and burning him is our only option.”

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t,” Sam said. “Just saying, I feel bad for him. Or for the little guy he once was, at any rate.”

“Meredith wouldn’t be so touchy-feely over this,” Dean said, purely just poking fun at his brother. They both knew Meredith’s one soft spot ran towards children. Well, children and animals. Small, reasonably defenseless things, at any rate.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah right. You know how she is with kids. She’d be feeling bad and you know it.” But even he knew that Meredith would also be willing to do what had to be done. And if that meant salting and burning, then so be it. Because life as a ghost was no kind of life -- well, afterlife -- for anyone.

It took three hours for the brothers Winchester to reach the small town where the private cemetery was located; it took them ten minutes after that to get to the cemetery.

And it took them half an hour after _that_ to find the right grave.

“Hell, man, this cemetery’s small,” Dean griped. “How could it take this much time to find one grave?”

“When it’s got a lot of people with the same name, you have to stop and check the dates on the tombstones,” Sam pointed out.

“Shut up, Logic Boy.”

Sam just shook his head. “Okay, let’s get this done, then. You get things ready, I’m gonna let Mer know it’s almost done.”

 _Just found the grave, getting things ready now,_ Sam sent to Meredith via text, followed by, _How’s Audrey doing?_

The reply, when it came, was noninformative. _Holding up._

Sam supposed he hadn’t really expected anything different. _Going to help Dean now -- will let you know when things are done._

No response.

 

And the reason for the no response would be that Meredith had just chased after Audrey, who’d gotten up and headed outside. “You need to stay inside until we hear from the guys that it’s done!” she protested.

“I can’t stand the waiting,” Audrey said. “I can’t stand the waiting and I can’t stand the not knowing if it’s done or not until they call.”

And that would be when the radiant boy apparently decided to round out the trio; it appeared at the end of Audrey’s driveway.

“Oh shit,” Meredith muttered. “Shit shit shit. Did not need you seeing this thing, too.”

“What’s it matter?” Audrey asked. “Your brothers are taking care of things.”

“There’s still the chance something could happen to you!” And that would be Meredith moving in front of Audrey protectively, even though it would do little to no good.

Audrey reached out to lightly touch Meredith’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” she said soothingly. “Relax. It’s going to be okay.”

Meredith smiled inwardly at the touch. “Yeah, it is.” A pause. “I’m sorry, you know. For lying to you. For not telling you what you deserved to know.”

“Of all the times for an apology,” Audrey said dryly. But she could tell Meredith meant it, and she was tired of believing ill of the woman she did still love. And so she accepted the apology, though it by no means meant things were easy or alright between them. But they were alright enough for now.

The radiant boy moved closer to them; Meredith stepped backwards, her movements pushing Audrey back towards the house. “Get inside, Aud,” she said. “Go. Now.”

Before Audrey could move, the radiant boy disappeared in a shower of sparks and fire.

“What... what does that mean?” Audrey asked.

“Means that my brothers did it,” Meredith said, turning around to face Audrey. “Means they took care of the problem.”

Audrey stood there for a moment before throwing herself at Meredith and kissing her soundly, a relieved sob in her throat.

Meredith returned the kiss, wrapping an arm around Audrey to pull her close. This didn’t necessarily mean anything, but it meant enough. It meant that there was a possibility that things could be worked out, that things might yet end well for them.

And a possibility was all she needed.


End file.
